Cooking Vacations in Italy
Investing 100% in Local Economies
We talk quite a bit about how we operate, and how we treat our guests. But we also believe it is very important to bring everything full circle and talk about the people we do business with. One of our primary goals from the day we began was to be fully integrated into the local economy wherever our vacations go. We want to impact the local residents in such a way that they feel a direct benefit by our presence, and as such, truly welcome our guests with open arms.
So what does this look like?
On the high end, it starts with our people. At every location, we have local residents that manage those locations. We don't just come in as some local force. We come in as part of the fabric of the community. Taking it one level down, we choose our accommodations very carefully. Unless it is absolutely impossible to do otherwise (and so far this has never happened), we only stay in locally owned accommodations. We simply avoid chains at all costs, so you will never stay in a Hilton with us. No disrespect to Hilton, of course, but we want to help the local economies as much as possible.
When it comes to where we dine, we are not just picky about quality. The who and the where are equally important to us. Is the restaurant owned by a family local to this town? Do they source their ingredients from local farmers and ranchers? All of these things factor in for us, because our goal is to keep as much of the money we spend in the local economy as possible.
Even the artisans, vendors and producers are very carefully selected with local economies in mind. If we are visiting a winery in Tuscany, we simply will not go to the big multi-national winery the tour busses are lining up at. Instead, we find small, family-run wineries that focus more on supplying he locals than ship[ping millions of bottles across am ocean. These are the same wineries that get the family and friends together to harvest their grapes by hand, rather than big machinery and automation.
The Benefits Outweigh The Cost
To be entirely honest, operating like this is not inexpensive, and it does not help our bottom line. This is partially because locals simply cannot compete with the big multinationals on price, and also because we are there to help them, not to grind them down to the lowest price we can squeeze out of them. But the result of that is that we are seen differently than other tour companies. We are seen as welcome guests, not as "cattle call tourists", and the difference is always felt by our guests.
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